


Ai no Iro

by Xairathan



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 10:04:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20964746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/pseuds/Xairathan
Summary: This is the room in Chaldea where those failed creations who can only blame themselves for their own making come to lay their heads.





	Ai no Iro

Cheeks flushed. Skin pale. Eyes rimmed in red.

At a glance, Jeanne Alter could pass for one of the women Kagetora remembers encountering in the halls of the Imperial palace. 

A closer look, and the illusion unravels. Darkened skin curls and twists under the harsh fluorescent lights. Jeanne Alter shivers and clutches at the edges of her jacket in spite of the heat coming off her, which Kagetora can feel even from behind the threshold of the doorway. A baleful glare, slit-like pupils bringing the golden fullness of her eyes against Kagetora. 

Kagetora steps aside in a seamless motion so fluid that it seems almost practiced, and allows Jeanne Alter to pass beneath her upraised arm into the darkness of her room.

* * *

Jeanne Alter loathes idleness, craves action. Those who’ve fought alongside her assume it’s her nature as an Avenger, a base desire to be burning or destroying something. Jeanne Alter lets them believe that. Better to be misunderstood by people whose opinions she doesn’t care about at all than exposed for what she truly is. 

(If her original turned her face towards the heavens to disguise the shine of tears in her eyes with the sun’s light, then Jeanne Alter will hang her head and pretend to be in a hurry, her gaze fixed on this world she’s adopted as her hell.)

What Jeanne Alter wants is, if not for her torment to end, then for it to be useful. She carries her hope not high as a banner but secretly in her chest, that a damned wish and a selfish refusal to die might amount to something better.

When that fails, this is where Jeanne Alter finds herself. The god of war ushers her in without comment.

This is the room in Chaldea where those failed creations who can only blame themselves for their own making come to lay their heads. 

* * *

They keep the lights off. That way, Kagetora doesn’t see if Jeanne Alter is crying; Jeanne Alter doesn’t see if Kagetora is smiling.

(She always does; she used to. In the present, Jeanne Alter’s tears hiss off her cheeks in puffs of steam like dragons’ breath, and Kagetora’s found it improper to smile when you, who cannot understand anyone, are the one to whom someone rips themselves open and offers their heart at your feet in desperation.)

This is the opposite of what should be happening. Kagetora is the one with the blood of thousands on her hands, and Jeanne Alter the saint of dragons. 

(The moniker of dragon witch fits better, but Jeanne Alter has never burned at the stake for it, so could she really be called a witch?)

When Jeanne Alter stops speaking, Kagetora leans forward and kisses the soreness from beneath her eyes and the color from her cheeks. 

All is forgiven, if there were anything for Kagetora to forgive.

* * *

There’s a pale reflection in Kagetora’s bed. The only difference is the shade of their eyes and the length of their hair and the roughness of their skin. Jeanne Alter presses herself to Kagetora in wordless supplication: there’s a kind of warmth even fire can’t provide. Kagetora, never one to admit it, seeks it too. 

The Dragon of Echigo knew of no such intimacy in her life. She’d killed and killed, but the warmth extracted in the spatter of blood across her armor and face hadn’t been the kind she’d wanted. 

She’d kept killing, because it was all she knew, and if she stopped, she’d have to confront the reality that no amount of killing would ever satisfy her.

(She knows that, now, thanks to the Avenger in her arms. She knows what the warmth she’d longed for is, and what happens when you can’t help it and have to keep killing anyway.)

* * *

Jeanne Alter’s body shudders against the sheets, ripples over a moonlit pond. Kagetora, uncharacteristically patient, drags a breeze of a shuddering breath from the Alter. Her fingers stir up a thrashing current, and draw from her a ragged cry, ebbing and flowing with the movement of Kagetora above her. With her eyes squeezed shut, she doesn’t see Kagetora’s shadow eclipse the ceiling, feels only the brief and torturous roll of Kagetora’s mouth over her chapped lips, like patient waves over immovable stone. Death by fire is no longer the death that Jeanne Alter knows most intimately. With a muffled shout and the only heartfelt plea to god she’s ever meant, Jeanne Alter throws her gaze up towards the sky, and goes under.

* * *

The sheets never stay on the bed when Jeanne Alter comes over. She has her own innate heat; Kagetora has her robes, and Jeanne Alter. Kagetora presses herself against Jeanne Alter’s back, fingers playing idly across her scalp. 

They don’t speak once they’re finished. Talking comes before, and the after is filled by things they might one day have the courage to say, but they’ll have to wait until the next time to know if they’re ready.

(What isn’t in doubt, that there will be a next time. Kagetora sees too much of herself in Jeanne Alter to turn her away, and Jeanne Alter can’t scare away someone who doesn’t know the concept of fear.)

In Chaldea, hidden far from the snow, a sight given as a gift solely for Kagetora: the dawning of the sun, the flicker of life returning to Jeanne Alter’s eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> amusingly the kanji for the title is 藍の色 but puns! If you get the reference you get a cookie.


End file.
